And the light, and the balance

During one of my shoots I wanted to see the impact of different white balances on the mood of an image. By shooting an object that most people take for granted, the emotional response to the subject of the image was removed from the equation. That is unless you have a thing for design paper towel dispensers. Speed and exposure are equal in all images.

The first shot was the “default” shot under mixed light conditions: fluorescent environmental light and blue (design choice to light the dispenser). In the second shot I chose to make the image warmer by using a higher white balance temperature, and in the third I chose to use a lower temperature to make it cooler.

Somehow I prefer the green cast in the original image to the higher and lower temperature. Note that in the third image the colors would be more natural if I had used a longer exposure.